The present invention relates generally to a hardware system for ready-to-assembly (RTA) furniture that allows assembly thereof without the need for tools. More specifically, the present invention relates to a modular hardware system for use in RTA furniture that can be employed universally throughout the furniture piece without the need for the use of tools during assembly.
In the furniture market today there is a growing demand for knockdown, RTA furniture that can be easily assembled once it has been transported or shipped from a store or other location to an area in which the furniture is to be used and that can also be easily disassembled for further transportation or storage. The demand for such furniture is great because, ideally, such furniture can be packaged in containers of sufficiently small size to permit cost effective shipping of large furniture pieces in a compact form thereby saving cost for the manufacturer and retailer. Further, RTA furniture in the knockdown state allows transportation of such furniture in conventional automobiles. However, while a compact package is desirable for the shipment and storage of the furniture, the issue of compactness must be balanced against the need for such furniture to be assembled and disassembled by a customer that likely has no particular mechanical skills or experience with the construction of furniture.
As one skilled in the art would appreciate, RTA furniture of the cabinet or desk type will normally include a number of vertical and horizontal panels designed to be joined together. The vertical, or upright, panels define spaces that may receive, for example, fixed or movable drawers, doors or shelves. In the past, attempts to manufacture easily assembled and disassembled furniture, have unfortunately had the disadvantages of requiring the manipulation of specially designed connectors, necessitating the use of both conventional tools such as screwdrivers and wrenches and, many times, specially designed tools. Often, as a result, the assembly process sometimes requires more than minimal mechanical skills. A special problem exists with the construction of furniture having drawers and doors, in that movable drawers and shelves are provided with drawer slides, which typically comprise two interlocking, complementary members that must be affixed to the bottom edge of a drawer, shelf or to an upright panel of the furniture requiring yet a different set of hardware for attachment. Similarly, doors require hinges and still further sets of different hardware.
The use of different sets of hardware then raises another issue in that, with conventional RTA furniture hardware, good quality control is required to ensure that each piece of additional hardware is packaged with the furniture and that the packaging is adequate for the hardware. Furthermore, there exists the potential that a consumer will not assemble a piece of hardware with the same degree of skill and care, as would the manufacturer. For example, screws may be put in crooked or not sufficiently tightened, or tightened too much resulting in stripped threads either in the screw or panel material, which may be wood or particleboard. Even if the assembly process is completed with care, many systems utilize an insert that needs to be indexed when it is assembled into the face of a panel, which adds a complication to the manufacturing process. Other no tools systems, as well as ones that do require tools, tend to loosen with time and vibration. If a piece of furniture is heavily used or moved when fully assembled, the joints between boards tend to open up and contribute to loss of stability. Further, if glue is required, a consumer may use incorrect quantities, or not allow the correct amount of dry time. These and other drawbacks can result in a piece of furniture that is not only not as strong or as durable as it could be, but also one that is less aesthetically appealing.
In addition to all of the above, some mass-market retailers require that all of the furniture they sell have assembly times of less than 30 minutes. Other mass-market retailers are expected to follow this trend in the next few years. This time limit will be a very difficult restriction to meet using traditional hardware to create complex RTA furniture pieces.
There is therefore a need for a hardware system for ready-to-assembly (RTA) furniture that allows assembly thereof without the need for tools. There is a further need for a modular hardware system for use in RTA furniture that can be employed universally throughout the furniture piece without the need for the use of tools during assembly. There is still a further need for a modular hardware system that operates to reliably affix complex RTA furniture components together that can be employed by people having little to no mechanical inclination in a minimum amount of time.